A Sartorial & Momma Affair

Peplum Blouse

March 29, 2016

Last month we celebrated Chinese New Year here in Singapore. It’s an occasion where we take time to visit relatives and gather with our love ones celebrating the cross over to a new year. It is also in tradition that married couples give out red packets to younger relatives or parents and grandparents as a form of blessing. I’m sure there is a lot of great articles out there on what Chinese New Year and its traditions really mean.

As mentioned in this post, I’m sticking to the tradition of acquiring new clothes for the new-year. My younger self would be out shopping way before the season and making sure I had enough clothes for the 2 days of visitation and 1 for the start of the work year. And ever since the sewing bug got to me, I’ve been hatching sewing plans a couple of months before and tries to find time to sew!

Initially I had wanted to make myself a Cheongsam. But I started so late I knew I wasn’t going to be able to make it so sadly I had to ditch the plan and change my course. That’s when the wardrobe architect exercise I went through last year came into great help! Instead of mindless sewing or rather rushed sewing that could potentially cause the garment to be worn once, I decided to go with something that suits my current style and body. And so, I picked the Peplum!

Peplum are great in hiding the tummy which is essential given the feasting involved through the entire Chinese New Year period. I didn’t have a pattern on hand but found this extremely useful tutorial by Devon aka Miss Make. Her instructions were clear and absolutely breezy to follow. I used my basic bodice up to waist and then followed her instructions for the half circle peplum. I would have made it with sleeves if it wasn’t that I didn’t have much time left and a sleeveless would definitely have lesser margin for error.

I literally only had time to handstitch the hem and tidied the facing for the neck and armhole the night before! Phew.. what a rush. Lesson learnt, I’ll probably have to be more diligent in getting started on it a couple of months before the arrival of CNY. It was quite impossible trying to get sewing done admist spring cleaning the house and baking pineapple tarts!